Rudolf Virchow

Who was Rudolf Virchow?

Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow ( VEER-koh, FEER-khoh; German: [ˈʁuːdɔlf ˈvɪʁço, - ˈfɪʁço]; 13 October 1821 – 5 September 1902) was a German physician, anthropologist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist, writer, editor, and politician. He is known as "the father of modern pathology" and as the founder of social medicine, and to his colleagues, the "Pope of medicine". Virchow studied medicine at the Friedrich Wilhelm University under Johannes Peter Müller. He took the first Chair of Pathological Anatomy at the University of Würzburg in 1849. While working at the Charité hospital, his investigation of the 1847–1848 typhus epidemic in Upper Silesia laid the foundation for public health in Germany, and paved the way for his political and social careers. From it, he coined a well known aphorism: "Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale".

His participation in the Revolution of 1848 led to his expulsion from Charité the next year.

Historical significance

He then published a newspaper Die Medizinische Reform (The Medical Reform). After seven years, in 1856, Charité reinstated him to its new Institute for Pathology.